Spring Recipes

For Spring Recipes think green salads, asparagus dishes, fiddleheads, apricots and artichokes. Eating with the seasons not only helps us to access the maximum nutritional quality of the food, and it also helps to lessen our environmental impact.

Some of my favourite spring recipes include this Wild Fennel Pesto, this Simple Vegetable Crustless Quiche and this Pearled Barley Risotto with Asparagus.

Vegan Ranch Dressing with Hemp Hearts

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This simple and delicious Vegan Ranch Dressing with Hemp is packed full of nutrition and taste. With only five ingredients it is an easy way to dress up a salad, and also tastes great on Buddha bowls or as a healthy dip for vegetables.

Hemp hearts are currently a hot topic and for good reason. They are an easy protein source, packed full of essential fatty acids, locally grown, and super versatile. I love hemp so much I’ve shared my favourite milk alternative Hemp Milk, and this yummy nutrient-dense snack Hemp and Sunflower Seed Pâté in the past. This Vegan Ranch Dressing Recipe with Hemp is my new favourite way to incorporate hemp into my day. The creaminess of the hemp lends itself to this dressing, and I love it with shredded kale, beets, and carrots on top of fluffy quinoa. Yum!
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The ULTIMATE Guide On How To Make Salad Dressing

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Use this guide to make your own salad dressing at home. Homemade dressings can be just as delicious as they are simple. See below on tips on how to maximize nutrition and taste in your homemade dressing recipe!

Why I Make My Own Salad Dressings

Making your own salad dressings is one of the easiest ways to boost the nutrient content of a meal. Dressing should be more than just a side thought, they can be a great vessel to add nutritious ingredients that would otherwise be more difficult to get.

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Wild Fennel Recipe – Pesto with Dates and Hazelnuts [GF, Vegan]

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Eat your weeds with this simple wild fennel recipe! Many invasive weeds are edible, some of them we are familiar with such as the beloved Blackberry Bush, other’s I’ve celebrated in previous posts including the familiar Dandelion (see Wild Edibles – Dandelions, How To Harvest and Women’s Health/). Wild Fennel is a common weed, originating from the Mediterranean and it resembles dill but has a strong anise, or licorice, aroma and flavour. You have likely come across it many times, in your backyard, in an open field, or trailing your favourite walking path. Anise, or licorice, can be an acquired taste, but when prepared properly the strong anise flavour is mellowed by the sweetness of the dates and creaminess of the nuts. This Wild Fennel Recipe of Pesto with Dates and Hazelnuts uses freely available weeds, combined with Vancouver Island Hazelnuts for a truly local dish.
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Dandelion Root Latte with Turmeric and Ginger

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This Dandelion Root Latte with Turmeric and Ginger offers a nourishing drink, filled with seasonal ‘medicine’. Dandelion Root is prized for its role in women’s health, as well as being recognized as an important prebiotic food.

I’ve shared some of my favourite features of dandelions spring-time nourishment in my previous post Dandelion Root Benefits – How To Harvest and Women’s Health. Why I am so passionate about this common weed is that it is one of the first greens to make an appearance after the cold winter, and it is freely available to anyone who wants to make use of this wild foraged medicine. The roots also hold a lot of powerful nutrients and can easily be transformed into a nourishing alternative to your morning coffee, such as in this Dandelion Root Latte with Turmeric and Ginger.

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Easy Almond Tempeh Vegan Meatballs Recipe [GF]

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Not even a week has passed since my return from Indonesia and I can confidently tell you that the thing I miss most is not the warmth nor the beaches, it’s the food. The flavours and the variety place this cuisine at the top of my list. If you haven’t tried tempeh yet and you are a lover of healthy and tasty food, boy have I got a treat for you. Indonesians enjoy it fried and spicy, and often will add it to dishes such as Gado Gado (see my simplified recipe for Gado Gado Peanut Satay Sauce Recipe) or have it cooked in a spicy sambal served with rice. It is as versatile as tofu, but many prefer the firmer texture of tempeh over its soybean cousin. Here is my play on tempeh, and a good one to get you started on your tempeh journey – Easy Almond Tempeh Vegan Meatballs.
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5-Ingredient Simple Beet Dip Cream Cheese

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If I have learned one thing from having a weekly vegetable box delivered to my door it is this – beets are always in season. Well, they are on Vancouver Island anyway. From June, straight through to October, they haven’t missed a beet, and even the winter edition is set to include more of this tasty vegetable. I have only just begun the experience the versatility of beets, from Beet Apple and Kale Salad with Walnuts and Dill to Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with Green Beans. And now another beet inspired dish to add to the repertoire – a super Simple Beet Dip with Balsamic Vinegar and Cream Cheese. The best part? It’s only five ingredients.
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Simple Vegetable Crustless Quiche with Feta

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The abundance of zucchini is a guarantee that summer is in full swing. Creative uses for zucchini have taken over my Pinterest news feed – ranging from stuffed, to chips, to zucchini noodles. People are mad about this summer veg but no need to get too fancy, zucchini can produce some quick and easy dishes as well. This Simple Vegetable Packed Crustless Quiche with Feta recipe is exactly that. No stove stop required (less dishes, yes!), and with 2 1/2 servings of vegetables per serve and a whole lot of protein, it’s super healthy as well!
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Kale Salad with Beet Apple and Dill

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As the years go by, I can start to appreciate the presence of fruit in salads. Where the sight of strawberries in a salad used to make my stomach churn, I can now appreciate the surprise burst of sweetness from a blueberry or the tartness from an apple in a salad. This April the veggie stands are showcasing beets, kale and apples. When these seasonal delights are jazzed up with a little bit of fresh dill and a simple vinaigrette style dressing, an exciting springtime Kale Salad with Apple, Beet and Dill is created. What I love about this spring dish is that it continues to showcase the produce of the autumn and winter, while the addition of fresh dill reminds us that spring has come.
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Lentil Roasted Vegetable Buddha Bowl Recipe

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Ever thought about what’s in season in March? There is no question that Spring has arrived- the flowers are out in full force and the winter jackets are back in storage. But even though the cherry blossoms are in bloom, not much is being harvested from the veggie gardens at this time of year. Luckily, last years cold storage veg have been kept in cellars for us all winter so we can still enjoy last seasons bounty while we wait for the new years crop. This Lentil Roasted Vegetable Buddha Bowl Recipe is a great versatile dish, and an easy way to use up excess produce in your fridge.
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All Seasons Lentil Salad with Fresh Herbs and Basil Vinaigrette

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Simple. Healthy. Tasty.

Sometimes its OK to not feel like cooking. Sometimes its OK jazz up your leftover lentils with some fresh herbs and a vinaigrette and bring that to a potlatch. Sometimes does not make you a bad person.
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Pearled Barley Risotto with Fresh Asparagus and Mushrooms

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Learning to cook can be a daunting task.

Last week, NPR posted an article titled “Learning A New Skill Works Best To Keep Your Brain Sharp.” While the rest of us are busy buying into expensive supplements and “superfoods” to increase brain power, the seniors in this study took up new skills. From grandpas taking up quilting to grannies taking up digital photography and Photoshop, the participants were motivated to prevent dementia and the results of the study were impressive.

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Simple Crustless Spring-time Asparagus Quiche with Cottage Cheese

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Have you ever seen how asparagus grows?

Being one of the first vegetables of spring, it sure does put in its just performance. At Pedrosa’s Asparagus Farm in Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island, we got to witness it first hand. You can marvel at how each individual spear head pokes itself up from the dirt, commencing its daily journey towards sunlight. We were told that on one warm day, each spear can grow… and grow… and keep growing until it resembles a 4-foot tree!
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Spring Recipes

Why I Make My Own Salad Dressings

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